Today in History

Today is Sunday, July 6, the 187th day of 2014. There are 178 days left in the year.

Today’s Highlight in History:

On July 6, 1944, an estimated 168 people died in a fire that broke out during a performance in the main tent of the Ringling Bros. and Barnum &Bailey Circus in Hartford, Connecticut. (Among the survivors was future actor Charles Nelson Reilly, then age 13.)

On this date:

In 1483, England’s King Richard III was crowned in Westminster Abbey.

In 1535, Sir Thomas More was executed in England for high treason.

In 1777, during the American Revolution, British forces captured Fort Ticonderoga.

In 1854, the first official meeting of the Republican Party took place in Jackson, Michigan.

In 1917, during World War I, Arab forces led by T.E. Lawrence and Auda Abu Tayi captured the port of Aqaba (AH’-kah-buh) from the Turks.

In 1933, the first All-Star baseball game was played at Chicago’s Comiskey Park; the American League defeated the National League, 4-2.

In 1957, Althea Gibson became the first black tennis player to win a Wimbledon singles title as she defeated fellow American Darlene Hard 6-3, 6-2.

In 1964, the movie “A Hard Day’s Night,” starring The Beatles, had its world premiere in London. The British colony Nyasaland became the independent country of Malawi.

In 1971, jazz trumpeter and singer Louis Armstrong died in New York at age 69.

In 1988, 167 North Sea oil workers were killed when explosions and fires destroyed a drilling platform. Medical waste and other debris began washing up on New York City-area seashores, forcing the closing of several popular beaches.

In 1989, the U.S. Army destroyed its last Pershing 1A missiles at an ammunition plant in Karnack, Texas, under terms of the 1987 Intermediate-range Nuclear Forces Treaty.

In 1994, 14 firefighters were killed while battling a several-days-old blaze on Storm King Mountain in Colorado.